Instead of a potentially dangerous paring knife, basically place the two points of the pruner between where you want to make the slash. The sharp points of the Fiskars pruner will make a controlled cut easily. It’s okay if the cut is a little ragged or disconnected, just make it at least 2/3 across the width of the nut, so the cooked nut comes out easily.
Instead of putting them in a roasting pan, just make a foil packet and put the slashed nuts in, fold all edges to keep the steam in.
I found some henryi chestnuts at the Germantown, MD Great Wall today. They were in 2 lb plastic containers for $10 each. Looks very fresh. There were smaller chestnuts next to them in net baggies for $3/lb - I bought similar nuts this fall and they taste pretty good but not great skin release.
I may have bought…a few containers, but there are still 15-20 boxes on display when I left. I peeled a couple and all look in good shape, no mold or other damage. Tastes nice enough raw.
It is good to see the Henryi nuts showing up more places. I think they are very tasty and have a bit more fat/oil to them than the Chinese nuts. I also really appreciate how easily the inner skin comes off compared to some nuts you get at stores.
By the way, that seems like a good price. They are $8.99/lb here, but people must see the value since they seem to be worth the store getting them in even when they have some “regular” chestnuts for $2.99/lb.
They’re still very plump, so the skin doesn’t come off automatically as can happen with a good aged Chinese chestnut. They are already pretty sweet, maybe a little sweeter than the average Chinese chestnut straight out of the fridge. I am going to age them at room temperature to see if that improves their peelability and taste.
Yeah, the price is good considering I am paying $7 to $9 a lb ordering Chinese chestnut online (and they all sold out within 2 weeks this year). These were not marked with origin information but the package is in Chinese so presumably they are from China. According to the package they are mountain grown with a “glutinous” mouthfeel.
If you get a chance to weigh them, I’d be curious how many there are per pound. The ones down here are 40-45/pound, which makes them a bit bigger than the ones I found last year so I wonder if they have a different provider.
Also, the ones here seem to be purchased in bulk and portioned into smaller bags at the store, and each bag has a different weight unlike the ones you have that sound like they are pre-packed in the bags. I didn’t ask the manager at my local store this time, but I know last year they got their Henryi nuts through a distributor in NY and they came in 55/lb bags.
They’re in 2 lb clamshells. Counted 104 in one pack, one is moldy but the rest looks good. Some variability size with the biggest being maybe 50% bigger than the smallest, most are about halfway in-between. Weighed all the nuts on a kitchen scale and they weigh 888 grams, so there may be about 1 oz of shrinkage due to dehydration.
Just roasted a couple along with Chinese chestnuts I just got out of the fridge. They seem a little less dense and the aroma is a bit different. I’m not sure I prefer them to good Chinese chestnuts but they’re definitely not worse.
PS - these are sold as 建甌錐栗, which is supposed to be the premier growing location (in northern Fujian) for henryi. Kind of surprising that these are being sold at a discount compared to the bagged unsourced nuts.
Weirdly, the Chinese language material promote henryi as better for eating raw because they’re sweeter. On the other hand, English language information suggest they’re not good to eat raw because they’re more tannic. I would say they’re edible raw, but not nearly as good as an aged Chinese chestnut that has no noticeable tannin. The Chinese material suggests that henryi are grown “wild” on hillsides because the trees are too tall and low yielding for intensive cultivation. There are 57,000 hectares under cultivation and 12 named varieties. They’re propagated by grafting.
Also interesting that the picture at the bottom shows the nuts to naturally crack at the bottom after cooking, so they may not need to be pre-scored like other chestnuts before cooking.
That is very interesting. Could they possibly be collecting true wild nuts for export? Seems unlikely, but interesting still since people like to get more genetic diversity if they are trying to grow things out. Perhaps @castanea has some thoughts on whether they might be pure wild nuts. I know the ones I found in Falls Church were thought to be hybrids that included some Chinese chestnut, probably to get them to their larger size.
I’m fascinated that they can charge so much more for them at the store here compared to other chestnuts they sell, although to be honest I’ve purchased some of those other nuts and they were never very good. There must be enough people here who know what they are and appreciate them enough to pay more. At one point I had seen some uses of them in cooking in a video on YouTube, so perhaps they are sought after for specific dishes? Or maybe it is just that they are more specific to a particular region, so folks from that area seek them out.
They’re not actually wild. In fact the linked article stated that there are 12 varieties that are propagated by grafting. Chinese people’s ideas of “wild” can be very different from typical North American ideals. I think it just means that they’re not intensively cultivated, sprayed, and prune like the mollissima chestnut orchards. I read another article with a farmer saying that his per hectare yield went up after he changed to organic fertilizer, so it’s definitely a managed crop.
Having eaten more of them, I would say I prefer Chinese chestnuts from a good online vendor. Mollisimas from a good tree will be sweeter, not tannic, easier to peel, and in better shape (my culinary mollissima nuts are about 95% perfect, whereas there are 20% henryi nuts with some defects even though these were obviously packaged and shipped with care (very plump and firm with no visible external bruising). The texture and fragrance of the cooked henryi may be preferred by some. The Chinese articles suggest that they command a premium (maybe upwards of 3x) compared to mollisimas. They’re better than what is otherwise available in grocery stores, but probably not better than what you can buy or grow yourself with a little care.
Not sure I’d grow them long term, they’re too big for my yard. The cultural notes suggest that they like a hot summer to really ripen the nuts and wood, and my summers may be a bit too mild. I may grow a few in hopes of persuading a friend to adopt one and become a pollen source for me.
I’m writing my first post, so first of all I would like to welcome all forum participants. I don’t know English, so I translate using Google translate. My location is south-eastern Poland, climate zone 6a. For several years I have been collecting and grafting chestnuts from Poland, as well as a few specimens from Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus. I also have several European varieties, the American Carpentar, Willamette and ACE. In my collection, I also planted chestnut seedlings from China, purchased at the supermarket. The trees are now 4 years old and most of them have already fruited. I can’t tell if these are hybrids, and if so, what species? Chestnuts from China ripened from September 10 to the first days of October. For comparison, B. d B. began to ripen on September 25. The fruits mostly weighed less than 10 g, some were about 15 g, from one tree 25 g. The flesh was usually yellowish, thick, sweet and very sweet, silky, very tasty. Some nuts peel well, some worse. There were 1-3 pieces of chestnuts in the hedgehog. Trees do not shed their leaves in winter.
I would be grateful for an answer to my question.
I am also sending photos of my dwarf chestnut trees from China. They taste like young broad beans or young green peas, depending on the tree. They can also be eaten raw, nuts store well. The leaves are duller than those of C. crenata and C. Mollissima, and variability among trees is low. The shoots are reddish.
Castanea, do you have any idea what species this might be?
Most four-year-old trees do not exceed 1.5 m in height. Nut size 6 -29 g depending on the tree. Their roots are eaten by voles and mice much more than C. sativa, they actually kill themselves for them.
The trees are only 4 years old, and I already have one-year-old hybrids with them. I accidentally came across an interesting species for breeding new varieties of chestnuts.
It is not C. henryi, because the number of nuts in a hedgehog is 1-3 pieces. Some of the nuts are quite large and the trees are very small compared to C. sativa of this age.
yes, nuts per is not henryi, it looks like mollissima. Not a new species, and not particularly dwarf from what I can see, very precocious which often is found in mollissima. Pubescence is not particularly high which is not typical.
They look like crenata or crenata hybrids. The only really odd thing is that crenata nuts usually don’t peel well. Maybe these are crenata/mollissima from Korea.
Thank you for your answer. My trees must come from Korea. They look exactly like the ‘Jahong’ variety. They are very resistant to drought and have low fertilizer requirements. I’m already looking forward to BdB hybrids with them!
